/sffg/ - Science Fiction & Fantasy General

>Is it normal to find the descriptions of the environment in the Lord of the Rings difficult to follow
LOTR and The Hobbit are made so that kids can understand them.

>Look for paperback version of Beren and Lúthien on Amazon
>release date 3rd of May
3rd of May 2018

amazon.co.uk/Beren-Lúthien-J-R-Tolkien/dp/0008214220/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1496436318&sr=8-1

Why?

Not completely true. LotR can be quite difficult to read for a non-native speaker. Its language is much more difficult than most of modern fantasy books.

at least we can agree asoiaf is trash

>No one mentioned this at all

Wat. That's been a recurring theme in the past three or four generals. Are you even paying attention?

>fantasy """literature"""

And you dare call me the pleb. Amazing.

Not really. Chances are you are a NEET with absolutely no experience in outdoors travel and/or basic fauna. And English might be your second language, which only makes it worse.

I had the same problem when I read LotR as a kid, because English isn't my first language, and all those plants and geographical descriptors went way past my head.

But as a well-read adult you have no excuse.

I'm not sure exactly, but I'll say that if you ever buy any Hubbard books you should only get them secondhand so the profits of a new sale don't fund the Church of Scientology.

How do expect people to take you seriously when you think that a few good chapters in novels where most chapters are garbage makes those novels good?

are there any science fiction or fantasy books that are actually good other than dune or the hobbit

> asoiaf to be among the greatest works of fantasy literature.
But GRRM doesn't go into detail about tax plans so how can it be good

Can I get a recommendation? I'm looking for an epic fantasy series that doesn't split its point of view between several characters and locations. Ideally, I'd like it to follow a single character or group of characters that travel together. Everything I've read will eventually jump around the map or have the group split up for way too fucking long.

So you have time to reconsider buying a blatant cashgrab.

>are there any science fiction or fantasy books that are actually good other than dune or the hobbit
You could read The Hobbit's sequel? Other than Tolkien you could try Vance, Peake, or Wolfe. Also did you try Howard's Conan yet?

The Belgariad

I was writing my reply before the thread died. First of all, I don't think there's much bad there apart from the Daenerys chapters, which are cringy-worthy, I agree. The Martell stuff may or may not be bad depending on what Martin does with it in the future. Considering books 4/5 are basically one book, and basically starting over after the crescendo of Storm of Swords, I'm not so quick to judge.

Though I enjoy a lot of stuff others seem to hate, like the Brienne chapters which I found insanely comfy, and I tend to agree with Preston that there's much more going on behind the scenes. If you only read the books once and have no vested interest in the series, I can see how they would suck ass for you. I thought so too when they came out, but having reread them thrice, I've changed my mind.

Bakker is literally Tolkien+Herbert. Go read The Prince of Nothing.

Not exactly fantasy... but I'm reading Taiko right now and it's basically exactly that.

Thanks, m8. I'm surprised I never heard of it before. Reading some reviews and it sounds bretty gud.

If I wanted to get into The Culture should I start Consider Phlebas? Or is there a book before it?

Personal opinion coming through, The Belgariad is literally the worst piece of fantasy I've ever read.

>Considering books 4/5 are basically one book, and basically starting over after the crescendo of Storm of Swords, I'm not so quick to judge.
When you combine both books you get 2186 pages. GRRM barely did anything those pages.

>When you combine both books you get 2186 pages
Jesus. The entire LOTR trilogy is 1216 pages. Does GRRM not have an editor?

Could you tell us why?

It's entry level fantasy but it's decent.

Why do so many fantasy authors create elaborate worlds and then insist on dumping all that info into their novels? Wouldn't it make more sense to add appendices (similar to what Tolkien did) or write a separate "history" book as a companion piece?

I hate conlang too

Once again, I am talking about the descriptions of the topography. The rest is simple.

Why does Goodreads let people review and rate books that aren't even out yet? As if the site wasn't shitty enough already.

better get this over with

Amber

>wants the reader to do his work for him
Pathetic

This was quite a long time ago but it felt so infantile, like everything escalated all the time as if the writer had to prove that he could come up with even more badass stuff all the time. If I remember correctly basically every fighting force was introduced as the best in the world and some enemy force fielded absolute absurd numbers, like a million fighters or so.

Goodreads is garbage don't bother with it. pic related is the average goodreads user

It is absolute trash. Worth reading for historical significance only.

>GRRM barely did anything those pages.

I'm not going to pretend they weren't soft on plot-pushing, but it could be that they're just a setup for what's to come. I choose to remain optimistic. Martin started off with a trilogy when ASoIaF began and then changed his mind. Whatever turn-around he has planned is big enough that he needed a lot of bullshit established in order to set it up properly. I mean, the show pretty much did away with all of this stuff altogether. It either omitted characters outright or just killed them.

So, yeah, I guess it's a matter of how you want to see it. If you're a pessimist and you think he's a hapless moron that got himself too bogged down to come out of it and he's only waiting to die, then the last two books are just a slog and you're better off waiting for the show to draw a conclusion. But if you have faith that the man can deliver (or could, at least in theory) then I don't think they're all that bad.I used to hate them until Preston Jacobs opened my eyes and showed me that there's too much elaborate stuff in there for it all to be mindless fuckery (though I don't subscribe to all his mad theories).

I think the main reason people hate these books so much is because Martin has change as a person since the original trilogy. I think he's matured (presumably a bit too late?), and that can clearly be seen from the tone he takes in many of these later chapters. Jaime's chapters and Theon's are definitely not the fucking tone for fantasy. So trying to weave that into what is essentially a simple fantasy tale can't be easy. Chances are it's going to be an epic disaster (if he ever finishes).

But we can continue this conversation tomorrow. It's past midnight here and I need to sleep.

The Eye of Argon

But didn't it go from a trilogy to needing a fourth book and then a fifth and then a sixth and seventh? The man's a fucking glutton is all

I'm not a fan so I couldn't care less if GRRM finished the series or not

Nothing can justify a 1000 page novel where nothing happened

Anyone read CL Moore? Considering picking up an omnibus that has Jirel of Joiry, Northwest of Earth, Judgment Night.

LOTR and The Hobbit were made so that kids from decades ago could understand them. Language evolves.

>76 pages
>science fiction
>published in a fanzine by a teenager
>the "The Room" of sci-fi fiction
yeah, no thanks, but have a (You) for contributing

No, not really. Most of the stuff being covered now bears no relation whatever to what was planned originally. The Martells weren't even mentioned as far as I can remember, same with other characters that will likely end up being important later on like the Tattered Prince, etc. The trilogy would've ended at Storm of Swords by concluding with the set of characters he started with originally. I think Jaime was supposed to end up as king, while Jon and Arya became lord and lady of Winterfell. Whatever, it's up there somewhere if you're interested.

That's a gross exaggeration and it only shows that you aren't paying attention. I'm not going to pull a Malazan and accuse you of being a brainlet, but you seriously are either misremembering or don't give enough of a shit about the series to appreciate all of the developments that took place in the last two books. I'd argue more things happened in either than in CoK.

It's a meme book like Sanderson and Bakker novels

>teenager writes a shitty book and decades later people shit on him for it
I feel sorry for the guy

Because they do all that shitty world building for years then forget they actually need a story so use all the exposition to pad it out.

>That's a gross exaggeration and it only shows that you aren't paying attention
Those shitty books could have easily been half their respective lengths but I guess when you're famous you don't have to bother with the editorial process

this. he should have stuck with a more focused view on the main narrative and combined all those cut out chapters into a sidestory to be published after the series is over

If you can't tell your story within 4 books at most then you might as well not even tell it.

Malazan?

Speaking of world building, are there any fictional history books that do away with the narrative altogether?

> If you can't tell your story within 2 books at most then you might as well not even tell it.
Trilogy was a mistake.

>If you can't tell your story within 4 books at most then you might as well not even tell it.
There's something worse that GRRM and others like Rothfuss do which is that they write too many pages. For example this user mentioned. Yeah the entire LOTR trilogy is about the same length as one ASoIaF novel.

There are no more good editors.

What a terrible excuse

what do the editors of famous authors even really do? those authors can publish whatever they want and it'll sell, especially when they're still writing the series and it's been years since an anticipated release

Tell that to Sanderson and his "planned" 10 book epic. I don't he realizes that the authors who write that many books for one series usually don't plan too. I expect he's going to extend his epic fantasy series soon

Hey lads, I'm writing a story loosely based on D&D and I've ran into an issue. I can't describe shit worth a damn. Can someone recommend me a book to help fix it? Currently reading "The elements of style"

Are you saying that you can't find the words to describe what you see in your mind or that you just don't know what to describe? In either case just write your first draft and work on that in the editing part. Proofreaders can be very helpful if you have someone who you can show your work to.

Is this bait? Sanderson is amazing.

>Sanderson is amazing.
How much does he pay you for shilling user?

one cummy in tummy per post

Culture books are standalone books in the same universe and they can be read in pretty much any order. Consider Phlebas and the Player of Games are the usual starting points.

Are there any fantasy books with a young homo protagonist that aren't completely awful?

Asking for a friend

>when you're licking Casper's asshole and his ghost friend pokes you in the back of the head with his dick

wolfe write realistic women
word.

I thought it was pretty dumb, and it's monstrously long.

Any science fiction/fantasy novels that are literally anime in novel form?

Sanderson

What's /sffg/'s opinion on the Three-Body Problem series?

I read the first two books and enjoyed them, but I still need to read the third book.

The third one has really interesting ideas and that's what saves it, because Liu has the most unbearably awful trainwreck of a female protagonist I've ever encountered fumbling her way through the whole book. but I still think it was worth the read.

Quest for Lost Heroes has a gay couple protags in it, but the gayness is so subtle they really come across more as the bestest friends ever who decided to spend the rest of their lives together and share a bed. They're not the main protags though, but it's an example of how to have fags in fantasy that isn't cringey as fuck.

>Those shitty books could have easily been half their respective lengths but I guess when you're famous you don't have to bother with the editorial process.

Keep moving goalposts, friend. What you said was that nothing happened, not that it could have been condensed. Of course, it can fucking be revised, condensed, and ultimately improved. Anything can.

Are you seriously comparing Martin to Rothfuss? Tell me, in what ways is the main narrative furthered In the Name of the Wind? Bad guys kill his family, they're mentioned a few more times in the first quarter, and then it ends on a cliffhanger just as he's about to learn more, some 500p later. Yeah, that totally sounds like ASoIaF.

And what the fuck kind of nonsense argument is that about LotR? Apart from the fact that they're both considered fantasy by normies, there's nothing connecting the two. Nothing. There's a reason LotR is short, and that's because it barely has any characterization and intrigue. You could go one step further and cut away every topographical description and interaction that directly isn't plot-related. By your standards, that should be a better book. Fuck what Tolkien wanted. Not like the guy knew what he was writing down or anything. Nah, it must just be a lack of editing, bruv. Fuck dem trees and shit nigga. Give me a story, amirite?

And this is why these arguments are so pointless. Who are you to decide what goes and what doesn't go into a work? I can think of very few books where it's absolutely clear the author has no idea what he's doing and we're just slogging around filling a quota. And it's impossible to make an argument until the work is completed, at which point you can see if and how everything ties in.

Take the Brienne chapters in AFfC. Many people think they're pointless. They're not, because they're providing a lot of world-building in huge chunks (which is directly relevant to what's to come in the Connington and Aegon part), and giving you a feel of Westeros outside of the capital and after everything that's happened. The only thing you can argue is that Martin should've chosen expediency and simply info-dumped everything in a single chapter, no matter how painful. Which is, again, a matter of taste and principles.

It goes without saying that all of these books could be improved and that there's fat you could trim off. But there isn't nearly as much of it as you think. And making comparisons between ASoIaF and LotR, or making the amount of pages one takes the main criteria for judging a series is fucking dumb.

Robert E. Howard is better than Tolkien

I WANNA READ TUC I WANNA I WANNA I WANNA

Can fantasy be effectively spliced with horror or do the fantastical settings remove the feeling of horror for readers?

...

I don't even get this question. Aren't most horror stories fantasy?

No way. His world-building is shit, and the dialogue is some of the worst in fantasy.

>inb4 muh pulp

Not an argument.

t. hasn't read Howard

I have. Not everything, but enough to form an opinion. What do you think is the single best Conan story, hmm? Which one of them is so amazing that it proves once and for all that he's the superior author in every way? Many times his dialogue is used to info-dump. So exciting.

And the world-building aspect isn't even debatable. My version starts off with an introduction of Howard giving a brief history of the setting, and I have no doubt in my mind that the franchise as a whole would have been better off without it.

>There are people here right now that consider asoiaf to be among the greatest works of fantasy literature.
It's just an above average fantasy series that became shit after the third book

Thank you!

He means could you write a horror story but in fantasyland, or would it being in fantasyland lessen the impact of the horror.

IMO it's like comedic scifi/fantasy and comes down to the author, horror is really more of a tone regardless of if it's a story about a modern day town with a terrible secret or some knights unknowingly entering a cursed castle.

Garth Nix, maybe?

The scifi/fantasy light novels that were adapted into anime?

grrm and Rothfuss pad their prose and that's a valid argument. Tolkien did not.

about to start Dune what should i expect?

a co-worker recommended greg egan with the caveat that's he's better at science and world-building than character development. i think he suggested that i start with his short stories; i read the first couple chapters of "schild's ladder."

i'm into stylish and weird stuff like dick and gibson, so should i start with "permutation city" like your flowcharts suggest, or should i read his stories?

Something not that well written but with scope, crazy ideas and ambition. There are better things you could be reading but it's good nerd history.

Nah malazan doesnt have much exposition or filler except for book8

>Nah malazan doesnt have much exposition or filler except for book8

not an argument.

Going on holiday for nearly three months and taking a stack of lit with me, figured I'd need more /sffg/ since all I've got is Wolfe's New Sun.

Do I get Roadside Picnic or Hard to Be a God?